Authors: Dean Murray
"It
looks like you don't actually need my help after all."
"We'll
see. If he tries it again you can go ahead and put him in the
hospital for all that I care."
Jackson
nodded and then pursed his lips. "I'm starting to think that I
misjudged you, Adri. I never would have guessed you had it in you to
do something like that."
"I
don't, not usually, but things have been so crappy lately that I
think in some way I was just looking for an excuse, looking for
someone to take my frustrations out on."
My
newfound zeal meant that I was carrying more books than normal. We'd
arrived at my locker and Jackson held his hands out to take my books
so that I'd have a hand free to spin the tumbler on the combination
lock.
"What's
going on? You made the team, you're a backup flyer, and you're
gorgeous. Most girls would practically kill to be in your shoes."
He'd
leaned in close as he'd said it, his voice dropping to something that
was only barely more than a whisper. I knew it was just an effort to
keep our conversation from being overheard by every other junior who
happened to share this section of the hall, but it was still
strangely intimate and the way that his breath caressed the side of
my neck was incredibly sensual.
A
tiny tremble ran through me, but I was pretty sure that I managed to
keep all of that off of my face.
"The
entire school hates me, half because I joined the team and the other
half because I got Janessa kicked off of the team. Most of the people
in both groups are convinced that I'm now some kind of massive slut,
and my sister now hates my guts for about a dozen different reasons.
Oh yeah, my parents are constantly at each other's throats lately,
and I'm pretty sure that it will take some kind of minor miracle to
keep them together long enough for me to graduate. Life is just
peachy."
Jackson
sighed. "I'm sorry, Adri. I guess that nothing good happens
without something bad happening to balance things out a little. I
wish that there was something I could do to help make everything
better. Is there anything else?"
Yes
.
I wanted to say it, wanted to confide in him, but I shook my head.
"Isn't
that enough?"
"I
guess it is. I don't suppose that my hitting people will do anything
to convince them to like you?"
His
expression was so deadpan that I couldn't help myself. I broke out
into the kind of laughter that invariably turns heads as people try
to figure out what you think is so funny.
"No,
I don't think it would, but thank you for the offer. I'll definitely
keep it in mind."
Jackson
nodded and gave me a warm smile that still somehow had some of the
smoldering heat that he'd used on me a couple of times before.
"Well,
then I guess we'd better get moving. The bus is leaving in twenty
minutes and if we don't hurry we're going to get left."
We
made the bus with a couple of minutes to spare and then had an
uneventful ride to the game. Miss Winters was apparently still a
little jittery about having the guys on the team and therefore on the
same bus as us, so she put the girls in the back of the bus, Jackson
and the other guys in the front of the bus and then sat between the
two groups.
By
the time I arrived, Sheree was already curled up in one of the seats
and sleeping soundly. Cindi beat me to the bus too and was sitting in
the very back of the bus with Missy and a couple of the other
seniors.
It
was possible if I went back there that Cindi might talk to me. She'd
been relatively pleasant earlier in the day, but I had a suspicion
that she was still at least a little mad at me and I didn't
particularly want to make the trip to the back of the bus and then be
humiliated by Missy and the others if Cindi didn't stand up for me.
With
Cindi and Sheree out as possible travel companions, I knew I was
pretty much out of luck. None of the other girls were going to talk
to me, so I just plugged my headphones into my phone, exchanged one
last smile with Jackson and then turned on some music and zoned out.
Cheering
at the game went better than my first game. I managed not to run into
anyone and I hit all of my marks. Jackson gave me a look a couple of
times that seemed to ask if I wanted to stunt with him, but I was
more than happy to leave that kind of stuff to the three flyers.
Flying during practice was one thing, doing it during a game would
probably just cause me to tense up again. Besides, I didn't want
Missy or Sheree to feel like I was gunning for their spots.
The
most annoying thing that happened during the game was the way that
Tristan looked me up and down every time our defense was on the
field. There wasn't anything I could do other than ignore him and
hope that Cindi didn't notice, but I knew it was only a matter of
time before one of the other girls noticed and said something to her.
We
won the game by two touchdowns, which was quite the feather in
Tristan's cap since the first-string quarterback was still out with
an injury. I still knew pretty much nothing about football, but I
suspected that we were going to have a really good team next year
with the way that he was playing. It was a perfect example of the
fact that being good at football doesn't mean you're a decent human
being.
This
school was big enough to have a locker room for the visiting team,
but only one. Miss Winters had told us that the football coach had
agreed to let us use it first, so once the game ended I just headed
in to change. The rest of the girls pretty much all made an instant
beeline towards our football team.
Predictably
Cindi was practically hanging off of Tristan's arm, but I didn't want
any part of that. Besides, I figured it would be better to get
changed back into street clothes by myself before the rest of them
all came into change. The less interaction I had with the other girls
the better as far as I was concerned.
I
was most of the way changed before they struck. I was in the middle
of pulling my white tank top over my head when I heard giggling and
an odd hissing sound. A split second later I felt a trickle of liquid
running down my back and I realized that the hissing had come from
one of those cheap squirt guns you buy at a dollar store. I pulled my
tank top down and turned to see what was going on, but they'd already
turned and run out of the locker room. I caught a flash of blue, but
didn't see enough to identify them.
I
reflected that it seemed like a pretty lame prank and ran my hand
across my back so that my top would soak up the water. It wasn't
until I saw the black on my hand that I realized that I hadn't been
sprayed with water. A quick trip over to one of the mirrors revealed
what looked like black ink staining the bottom of my hair and the
back of my shirt.
I
wanted to cry and scream all at the same time, but I just grabbed
some paper towels and used them to blot the worst of it off of my top
so that it wouldn't run onto my jeans. My tank top had actually
protected the top of my head, but the bottom inch and a half of my
hair had turned a splotchy, streaky black.
I
used some more paper towels in an effort to try to strip off the
worst of the ink, starting at the top with a clean paper towel and
working down so that I didn't spread the ink further up. It probably
would have been quicker to just strip back down and wash my hair, but
I wanted to make sure that I had plenty of evidence to show Miss
Winters and I was pretty sure that it was going to take hairspray or
some kind of specialized cleaner to get the ink out anyways.
I
cleaned my hands off, grabbed my stuff, and then headed back outside.
A mostly-full garbage can had the squirt gun lying on the top of it
along with the plastic gloves that they'd used to keep the ink from
staining their hands.
Pretty
much the entire squad except for Cindi and Sheree were lined up
outside, just kind of standing around inconspicuously, but I knew
that they were there just so they could see me come out covered in
ink. I was suddenly very glad that I hadn't started crying or
yelling. I didn't want to give any of them the satisfaction.
Miss
Winters showed up before anyone said anything and her eyes went super
wide.
"Adri,
what happened?"
"Someone
from our squad sprayed me with ink while I was getting changed. I
didn't see them well enough to be able to tell who they were, but
they were wearing blue uniforms."
I
was pretty sure that the school paid Miss Winters a little bit to
coach us, but mostly she paid the bills by working as a cosmetologist
during the day. What had been done to me wasn't just wrong, it
probably insulted her professional sensibilities. She looked at me
for a couple more seconds with her mouth open than then closed it
with an audible click.
"Let's
get you taken care of, Adri. The rest of you girls stay right here. I
don't want you in there with us, and any girl who leaves to go home
with her parents or someone else is off the squad, no questions
asked. Once I've helped Adri I'm going to come back out here and
we're all going to have a rather pointed discussion."
I
followed her back into the locker room. "I don't think that
there's much we can do, Miss Winters. The ink isn't going to come out
with just soap and water. It will just have to wait until I make it
home."
She
looked positively miserable. "How long has this been in your
hair, Adri?"
"I
don't know, maybe ten minutes."
"Sweetie,
it's not ink. It's hair dye, I can tell by the smell."
I
closed my eyes and took a deep breath as I tried to stop myself from
completely losing it.
"It's
been too long, hasn't it?"
"More
than likely. If you had darker hair maybe not, but your hair is so
light that it will have had some effect by now."
Apparently
my distress was more evident than I meant for it to be because she
rushed to reassure me.
"Don't
worry though, I've fixed worse than this. We can bleach it back out
so that you're a blonde again, or we can change it to pretty much
whatever color you would like."
I
shook my head. A few of the girls at school had used Miss Winters to
color their hair and I knew that she did a good job, but I also knew
that there wasn't any way that she could recreate the sheer depth of
the high and lowlights in my hair. She'd probably get a good match
for my base hair color, but even then it wouldn't be quite right.
I'd
never realized just how vain I was. I'd told myself for years that I
didn't care what other people thought, that what was on the inside
was more important than what was on the outside, but that wasn't
quite true. My character was the most important thing, but I did care
how I looked and for years my hair had been the one physical
attribute that I'd been proud of.
Other
girls bleached their hair in an effort to make it look like mine did
naturally, but no matter how hard they tried it was never as rich as
mine. If I bleached it then I'd be making myself look just like all
of them. I'd look like just another artificial blonde cheerleader who
wasn't happy with the color that nature had given her. They would be
winning.
"Can
you just cut off the ends instead? Turn it into a bob, or if there
isn't enough unstained hair, maybe you can do a pixie cut."
She
was backing away from me now with her hands raised. "Let's not
do anything hasty, Adri. Cutting your hair isn't something you should
do on the spur of the moment like this. Let's just get the dye rinsed
out enough that you won't get it all over your other clothes and the
bus. We can figure out where to go from there tomorrow or Sunday
after you've had a chance to think things over."
She
was right and I knew it. It was stupid to just hack my hair off like
this, but a wave of stubbornness washed through me. I didn't dig my
heels in very often, but when I did nobody had ever managed to budge
me.
"I'm
not going back out there like the ugly stepsister because that will
mean that whoever did this to me has won. I want to go out there like
they didn't manage to get to me. If you won't do it then I'll cut the
ends off myself. I think I've got some nail clippers in my bag."
I
set my bag down and started rummaging through it. Miss Winters took a
deep breath and then put her hand on my arm.
"If
you're that determined then I'll cut it for you, just please, please,
please make sure you're positive that this is what you want to do."
"I'm
sure."
"Okay,
I came directly from work and I was bringing my scissors home so I
could cut my niece's hair. I'll go send someone for them."
She
left the locker room and I thought I could hear snatches of
conversation as she ordered one of the girls to go get her bag.
Whoever
she sent must have run because she was back in less than five
minutes. Miss Winters sat me down on one of the hard wooden benches
and pulled out her scissors.
"This
is your last chance to change your mind, Adri."
"It's
okay, just go ahead, please."
I'd
heard that she was good, but I was surprised at how quickly she
worked. The black ends fell to the floor in rapid succession despite
the obvious care she was taking to make sure she didn't let any of it
fall on my jeans.
She
then wiped her scissors clean on a paper towel, and started in on the
undamaged hair. The whole process took less than twenty minutes after
which she let out a deep breath.
"Okay,
it's done. If you come by my house tomorrow I'll finish cleaning it
up for you and I'll show you how to style it, but that's as much as I
want to do tonight and the guys are no doubt starting to get antsy."
I
nodded. I'd actually forgotten that the football team still needed to
change. I just wanted to sit there, but I forced myself to go stand
in front of the mirror. My hair had been just barely past my
shoulders and almost completely straight. I'd been trying to grow it
out for almost a year now. Before then I'd kept it a little shorter
so that Cindi and I had almost the same hairstyle.